Harlan Ellison: Dreams With Sharp Teeth

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All Rise...

Judge Jim Thomas never mailed anyone a dead gopher, but his brother put a live frog in the mailbox. Mom was not amused.

The Charge

Harlan Ellison has won almost every major award in his field, his stories
have transformed the genre of speculative fiction, his non-fiction has garnered
worldwide acclaim—in fact, both are used in college classes across the
nation. He's also written extensively for television, including classic segments
for The Outer Limits, Star Trek, and the 1980s revival of The
Twilight Zone. At the same time, he is one of the more polarizing figures in
the realm of speculative fiction. His acerbic personality has made him the stuff
of legend, to the point that the myth has often overwhelmed reality; to this
day, he still has to explain that no, he never shoved a fan down an elevator
shaft at a convention.

In 1981, Erik Nelson shot some footage of Ellison for a PBS special that
never came to pass. Nelson continued to interview Ellison over the years, and at
length Nelson realized that he had enough for a full-length documentary, and
fleshed out the existing material by interviewing some of Ellison's closest
friends, including Robin Williams, Ron Moore, and Neil Gaiman. Harlan
Ellison: Dreams With Sharp Teeth takes us from Ellison's childhood in
Painesville, Ohio, to the present day (more or less), affording us a glimpse of
the man behind the curtain.

Now, Dreams With Sharp Teeth comes to us courtesy of Docurama
Films.

The Case

Dreams With Sharp Teeth makes no attempt to downplay Ellison's caustic
personality; in fact, that personality is the focus of the first 20 minutes or
so. From insisting that he get paid for his work, to confronting a fan at a
convention, to yelling at someone for using a cell phone while driving, the
initial image of Ellison is that of a cantankerous pain in the ass. Whereas a
lesser being might respond to being cheated by a publisher with a strongly
worded letter, Ellison once responded by mailing said publishing house a dead
gopher. In the middle of summer. Fourth class. So it's perhaps not surprising
that the personality overshadows the work at times. Woven throughout his section
is an overview of his writing career, and the various accolades garnered during
a fifty-year career, begging the question that drives any good biography:
Just who the hell is this guy?

Thus the scene shifts to Ellison's childhood in Painesville, Ohio, the
section that is the heart of the film in many ways. Not only does it contain the
single most touching image—Ellison watching some home movies of his
childhood, tearing up at the sight of his father—but it also provides some
insight into the Ellison's famously querulous nature. He dealt with a lot of
anti-Semitism growing up, and one of the results, as Ellison himself
acknowledges, is that he cannot stand feeling as though he's being ridiculed;
that simple fact underlies many of the actions that make up the Ellison myth. A
publisher cheating him, a television producer making suggestions about a script
that he hasn't even read, someone rewriting his work—Ellison will
take that sort of stuff personally, and the reaction is likely to be dialed up
to eleven.

Now, Ellison has his share of detractors, and some of them probably have
legitimate grievances. If someone mailed me a dead gopher, I'd be pretty pissed
myself. They may view this film as an attempt to justify Ellison's behavior,
either by saying "Well, he's a great artist, and we forgive just about
anything if the guy's got enough talent," or "Poor thing, he's just
the product of the terrible persecution he endured as a boy." Bullshit. The
film is by no means an apology for Ellison; but if a man is the sum of his
parts, then he is a sum of all of his parts, not just the bad ones.
Thanks to the masterful editing of Randall Boyd, we get the good as well as the
bad. Amidst the archival footage and interviews, we see Ellison in his natural
habitat—talking with fans, eating pizza with Neil Gaiman, waxing poetic
about Los Angeles, working on the set of "The Discarded" (a short
story of his adapted for the Masters of Science Fiction series in which
Ellison has a cameo), having dinner with friends. In those settings, you get a
better understanding of Ellison the person.

I'll grant that it's hard to reconcile the various images of Ellison; but
then again, try distilling your own life and career into two hours and see how
far you get. A few scenes, for me, at least, help fit the pieces
together. In one, Ellison reads the opening of his account of the March from
Selma to Montgomery in 1965 ("From Alabamy, with Hate"); Ellison
marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It catches my attention partly
because I'm from Alabama, but mainly due to the last sentence: "And if you
weren't there marching beside us, go screw yourself." Ellison has a long
history of activism; the film includes several clips from the '60s through the
'80s, and it becomes clear that much of Ellison's ire and stems from a
perception that people have become almost willfully ignorant (the sequence
dovetails neatly with a discussion of fandom from earlier in the film), and that
such people have, in effect, abdicated their responsibility to the world as well
as to themselves. Ellison's reaction to the placidity has been to adopt an
"angry young man" mode of speaking, writing, along with a mode of
behavior designed to challenge that placid state and knock the reader/audience
out of complacency; Neil Gaiman, author of The Sandman and
Coraline, perhaps puts it best when he talks about the ongoing piece of
performance art that is Harlan Ellison.

The other sequence that sticks in my head is an interview with Josh Olson,
who adapted the screenplay for A History of Violence. Olson reads an
inscription from Ellison in one of his books. It goes way past the simple
"with best wishes for your career," and it brings out another
important side of Ellison—the man who passionately encourages and
champions new writers, whether by running a writers workshop or simply by
singing their praises to the four winds. It's the flipside of the previous
paragraph—if you're stuck in your own little world, Ellison feels
obligated to smack you upside the head, Cher-like, and yell, "Snap out of
it!" If you're already engaged in the world, he feels equally obligated to
provide his own special brand of encouragement, to make sure you don't
backslide. (Note: That's mainly an inference on my part; make of it what you
will.)

The film doesn't spend a lot of time discussing or analyzing Ellison's works
from a literary standpoint—the work is used more to illustrate various
aspects of Ellison's personality. In fact, most of the transitions in the film
are made via Ellison reading his work, always a selection that complements the
next segment. He has a strong dramatic delivery, aided by evocative CGI
backgrounds.

Additional readings are provided as extras. Sadly, only one reading,
"Prince Myshkin, and Hold the Relish" is complete; the others are but
excerpts. You a get a feel for Ellison's way with words, but the power of the
works is diminished. The excerpt from "The Prowler in the City at the Edge
of the World," a sequence of savage violence, is a pivotal moment in the
story, but it's from the middle of the story. Furthermore, that story is
itself a sequel to "A Toy for Juliette" by Robert Bloch—the
result is that a newcomer to Ellison has absolutely no context with which to
approach the material. There probably is no easy way to ease someone into his
work, but still, if the goal of the excerpts was to introduce people to
Ellison's work, one or two more complete works would be preferable.

Technically, the disc is solid. The picture is sharp and free from blemishes
(some of the archival footage shows it age. The stereo audio track is clear;
even the archival footage is clear. Only a few convention scenes are a little
difficult to understand, due to the distance between Ellison and the camcorder.
You can also appreciate Richard Thompson's original score, a lovely series of
jazz guitar pieces. The disc also offers a strong set of extras: A mini
documentary of the 2007 premiere of DWST, including a Q&A session,
and a roughly 30-minute clip of Ellison and Neil Gaiman eating pizza and
reminiscing.

One of the final sections of Harlan Ellison: Dreams With Sharp Teeth
revolves around Ellison's wife Susan, whom he married in 1986. All of Ellison's
friends agree that she has been a calming influence in his life, and their
stories can't help but bring a smile. For if the angriest young man can find
love and happiness (if not serenity), surely there is hope for the rest of us.
In any event, the documentary offers an insightful, entertaining look at a
charming, caustic, warm, vindictive, witty, ill-tempered guy who just happens to
be one of the best writers of our time.

The Verdict

So I'm rewatching, taking some notes, and my wife starts watching, mainly to
figure out who the hell this guy is who wrote all those freaking books that her
whacked-out husband has on the shelves. When she sees the inside of Ellison's
house, walls covered with pictures, shelves overflowing with books, tapes, CDs,
collectibles (They really should have used the inside of his house as the model
for the library in The Name of the
Rose), she turns to me and says "That's exactly what your house
would look like if you weren't married." Apart from that, she has only
chuckled over various exploits (being particularly impressed with the dead
gopher).

As the credits roll, I look over. "So what do you think?"

She gives a little shrug. "I guess I'm gonna have to read some of his
stuff now."